Roi Tov: Will the USA Use Agent Orange Against Syria?

Saigon does not exist anymore. It became Quarter 1 of Ho Chi Minh City following the most spectacular defeat of Western Imperialism.*

I met American veterans there. Invariably, they kept referring to the city as Saigon. I did not meet any of them at the War Remnants Museum, which is not far from what was South Vietnam's Presidential Palace.

Asian museums** are not run according to Western ideals. Yet, even among them, the War Remnants Museum sticks out due to the nature of its exhibition.

Americans avoided it, I run out after seeing a few deformed fetuses kept in giant jars. The unborn babies were the lucky victims of the American chemical attack with Agent Orange.

The unlucky victims spent their days crawling on the streets asking for alms.

American governments have always claimed that their vicious chemical attacks didn't violate the Chemical Weapons Convention since Agent Orange is technically a defoliant. The text quoted in the footnotes,+ belongs to one of the most widely accepted international conventions, and shows that the claim can be considered neither valid nor serious.

If it were valid, anybody could claim that slipping Agent Orange into the coffee of an American is as legal as the American chemical attack on Vietnam. President Obama probably won't accept this interpretation. I don't.

The Agent Orange attack on Vietnam was a flagrant, purposeful, public violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention by the United States of America.

Recurring Aggressor

"My solution to the problem would be to tell them (the North Vietnamese) frankly that they've got to draw in their horns …, or we 're going to bomb them back into the Stone Age."
Horned Curtis Lemay, Commander of the Strategic Air Command, U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff, November 25, 1965
He, a chemical weapons aggressor, lost the war.The Agent Orange Book Of The Dead

The attack on Vietnam wasn't the first instance in which American used weapons of mass destruction (the massive extension of Agent Orange attacks and the numbers of its victims exceeds the following example). The most bestial attack with weapons of mass destruction was conducted by the USA Government on Japan, when it dropped two atomic bombs on civilians.

Crimes against humanity are defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum as events that "are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of human beings."

These crimes are not isolated or sporadic events but are part either of a government policy or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. Isolated events are defined as war crimes or violations of human rights. The perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy in order to bear responsibility for their crimes.

In one of the most shameful moments of the USA, its Secretary of State Colin L. Powell lied to the United Nations during an infamous presentation in February 2003. He offered false audio intercepts, photographs and testimony from anonymous witnesses as proof that Hussein was developing chemical, biological and, perhaps, even nuclear weapons, despite evidence to the contrary offered by U.N. investigators.

One month later, the USA invaded Iraq, backed mainly by the UK. Soon afterwards, the American lie collapsed. Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were a fairy tale designed to coerce public opinion for the glory of America's oil-interests.

Neither Powell nor President Bush had faced international justice for the crime.

In recent weeks, we are witnessing a coordinated effort by President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, and their ally Israel to promote an international attack on Syria, like those on Iraq. This time it would be called the Grandmother of All Battles.

The argument is based on a chemical attack perpetrated by the Western backed mercenaries in an attempt to escalate the war after it became clear that they are losing it. Russian President Putin blamed them; Israel acknowledged that Assad is winning (See 911 Obama Bombs Syria and Kerry's 1400 Lies).

Yesterday, September 6, 2013, Obama tried to gain support to his Grandmother of All Battles's War during a G20 meeting in Russia. He failed. He left with the same few supporters he had before his travel. Most of the world opposes America's aggressiveness.

Mr. Obama, you are Commander in Chief of the world's most aggressive army, and President of a few large corporations violating the rights of hundreds of millions of people void of rights. You must have wars in order to distract your slaves of their conditions and to keep your war-based economy alive.

Mr. Obama, are you aware that invariably, shameful Americans hide their identity while abroad? "I am from Bermuda, Canada, New Zealand," I have heard them saying. After a short talk, they disclose the truth: they are ashamed of being citizens of the USA.

Yet, you claim to lead a democracy and to respect human rights, against all available evidence. You think to own the right to attack everybody you dislike while you do not acknowledge the right of your victims to defend themselves. Why can't you behave decently, honestly, as humans do? Will you use Agent Orange against Syria based upon your mercenaries' chemical attack on it?

———

* "There is no question of your transferring power. Your power has crumbled. You cannot give up what you do not have." These were the words said by Colonel Bui Tin from the Vietnamese army to Duong Van Minh, the last president of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975, in what became known as the Fall of Saigon.

+ The Chemical Weapons Convention is a political document; as such, it includes political compromises. In order to avoid misinterpretations, it includes a list of forbidden chemicals and their precursors. It includes also a definition of what a chemical weapon is. Not surprisingly, these two sections slightly contradict each other.
The Convention article's "Definition and Criteria" defines a chemical weapon in subparagraph 1.b as "Munitions and devices, specifically designed to cause death or other harm through the toxic properties of those toxic chemicals specified in " Paragraph 2 clarifies what a "toxic chemical" is: "Any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals. This includes all such chemicals, regardless of their origin or of their method of production, and regardless of whether they are produced in facilities, in munitions or elsewhere."
This is so clear that there is no way of excluding white phosphorous from this list. White phosphorous has been used in smoke, tracer, illumination and incendiary munitions since the 19th century; notoriously in the Vietnam War. The same goes for
Agent Orange was used by the U.S. military as part of its chemical warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. Vietnam and the Red Cross estimate that over 400,000 people were killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth defects as a result of its use.
Agent Orange wass a 50:50 mixture of 2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid manufactured for the U.S. Department of Defense primarily by Monsanto Corporation and Dow Chemical. The 2,4,5-T used was contaminated with 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (TCDD), an extremely toxic dioxin compound. The chemical weapon name was derived from the color of the orange-striped 55 US gallon (208 l) barrels in which it was shipped (chemical weapons are often marked with bright colors. The IDF favors silver, see Chemical Duel)
The United States military sprayed nearly 20 million US gallons (76 million liters) of material containing chemical herbicides and defoliants mixed with jet fuel in Vietnam, eastern Laos and parts of Cambodia, along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. I visited it in the early 2000's, and many areas of this lush area were still bald, see Idris: the West "leave us alone to be killed"

++ In my 2006 visit to the USA, I met several times Shanadii, the granddaughter of Geronimo, the 19th century Apache leader. The details of some of these encounters appear in Back in Bethlehem. One of the most touching sentences she kept repeating was "I have the right to demand ownership of this entire valley (Canyoncito) from the USA government." Needless to say, she was kept practically prisoner by yet another government fighting an inconvenient truth. No government—Zionist or American—can steal from the people. No government—Zionist or American—can delete history, even if it got stuck in 1984.